As I sat and watched the third period of game 4, after the Bruins got a 1-0 lead, my girlfriend looks at me and says, "My God, the Bruins have four players in goal."

I've always held the opinion that the way to beat teams that defend this way is to stockpile a few guys who can blast the puck from the point, and simply shoot right into the pile of bodies. Literally shoot the puck at the goal anyway, and let it hit whomever is standing in the way.

Make no effort whatsoever to look for a "shooting lane" and just blast away, and have a player or two from your team in the perimeter ready to pounce on the rebound, and if the shot takes a bounce to the other team, simply skate backwards in a similar fashion and challenge the team at both blue lines when they try to bring the puck up the ice. Eventually gruesome injuries caused by blocking the shots will force the opposition to abandon this strategy. Blocked shots with injured players on the ice create chaos, and the best way to disrupt any system is to create chaos. I contend that the Pens lost this series because they missed the net so many times, trying to be too cute and avoid the plethora of bodies lined up to block shots. They should have stuck to their game. Maybe the series would be 3-2 heading into a game 6.

This idea might sound ridiculous, but before you all laugh at me for suggesting it, consider that no coach has come up with a way to beat this type of defense. In hockey, when an obstruction is in your way, you knock it down with force. That's the essence of the game. Call it the "Campbell Strategy." Shoot the puck anyway. Thoughts?

You would end up giving multiple break aways to the other team. How many times do you see a break away when the opposing player does not find a shooting zone, gets the puck blocked and the other team is off to the races?

There is no doubt that what cost this team was a complete and total inability to just shoot the puck on net. Commentators mentioned it all of the time and anyone watching, including my young son, just kept saying it repeatedly, why can't they ever get a shot on target?

As to the way you beat a collapsing team, forgoing the obvious which is scoring and making them have to move, is to throw bodies in front of the net yourself. You have players come in from the side and sweep players aside. You have to be physical and determined. That is why you kept hearing analysts saying that they needed to get people in front of Rask. In the rare instances when the Pens actually shot on goal, The B's usually had position to get the puck out of the crease quickly.

I thought that getting players like Morrowto compliment our highly skilled guys would help us deal with teams like the Bruins and the strategies they employ. What happened to Morrow? Why wasn't he in front of the net?

RisslingsMissingTeeth wrote:There is no doubt that what cost this team was a complete and total inability to just shoot the puck on net. Commentators mentioned it all of the time and anyone watching, including my young son, just kept saying it repeatedly, why can't they ever get a shot on target?

The Pens were trying to hard to pick the upper corners on Rask. That's why they kept missing the net. I heard mention that the scouting report was to shoot high on Rask to beat him. So the Pens were all picking corners. I thought Neal mentioned something similar before game 4 that he had to quit trying to pick corners and just hit the net.

Boston wasn't playing Montreal hockey. They had their forwards up high pressuring our point men a lot during this series. They knew if they forced our D to make quick, smart decisions that they would panic, and they did.

It was only on our breakout that I noticed they consistently had 5 guys behind the puck (and blue line for that matter). Boston never had to abandon that strategy, since they were winning for virtually the entire series, and when they weren't, they simply played the same style and waited for the Penguins to make a mistake and capitalize.

It's a very frustrating brand of hockey, but it works when your goalie stops 99% of the pucks he sees and you can score goals 20 seconds into each game.

RisslingsMissingTeeth wrote:There is no doubt that what cost this team was a complete and total inability to just shoot the puck on net. Commentators mentioned it all of the time and anyone watching, including my young son, just kept saying it repeatedly, why can't they ever get a shot on target?

The Pens were trying to hard to pick the upper corners on Rask. That's why they kept missing the net. I heard mention that the scouting report was to shoot high on Rask to beat him. So the Pens were all picking corners. I thought Neal mentioned something similar before game 4 that he had to quit trying to pick corners and just hit the net.

I heard the same thing but it became clear that Rask was giving up rebounds on low shots and we were missing the net (not to mention scoring ZERO goals) so one 2 minute coaching conversation changes that strategy. Of course, that assumes you have a coach with half a brain.

I've heard a lot of comments like that one, "any half decent coach would have tried....."

And there ends the conversation. If they retain Bylsma for next season, I'm still going to follow the Pens, but I'll expect absolutely nothing from them in the postseason as long as he's the head coach.

And as for the Pens players who were supposed to be net front presences, they were completely invisible. Kunitz was obviously hurt, Morrow probably was also, but who knows? Bylsma is a smug, arrogant, bumbling idiot who should have lost his job after the Flyers series last year.

I don't know if he's an idiot. He's a young coach that has the best talent in the world, its not hard to imagine why he would think the talent would eventually take over. Getting fired may be a good wakeup call for his career, but I think his time needs to be up in Pittsburgh.

The Pens got no traffic in front of Rask. None. They made it easy. Even bumping him, even running him, just to get him off his game a bit. Another thing, I think one way to deal with Chara when he is on his game is go right at him. Neutralize his reach, go at him. When you try and go around him or pass through him, you are just playing to his reach.

owtahear wrote:The Pens got no traffic in front of Rask. None. They made it easy. Even bumping him, even running him, just to get him off his game a bit. Another thing, I think one way to deal with Chara when he is on his game is go right at him. Neutralize his reach, go at him. When you try and go around him or pass through him, you are just playing to his reach.

RxBandit66 wrote:As I sat and watched the third period of game 4, after the Bruins got a 1-0 lead, my girlfriend looks at me and says, "My God, the Bruins have four players in goal."

I've always held the opinion that the way to beat teams that defend this way is to stockpile a few guys who can blast the puck from the point, and simply shoot right into the pile of bodies. Literally shoot the puck at the goal anyway, and let it hit whomever is standing in the way.

Make no effort whatsoever to look for a "shooting lane" and just blast away, and have a player or two from your team in the perimeter ready to pounce on the rebound, and if the shot takes a bounce to the other team, simply skate backwards in a similar fashion and challenge the team at both blue lines when they try to bring the puck up the ice. Eventually gruesome injuries caused by blocking the shots will force the opposition to abandon this strategy. Blocked shots with injured players on the ice create chaos, and the best way to disrupt any system is to create chaos. I contend that the Pens lost this series because they missed the net so many times, trying to be too cute and avoid the plethora of bodies lined up to block shots. They should have stuck to their game. Maybe the series would be 3-2 heading into a game 6.

This idea might sound ridiculous, but before you all laugh at me for suggesting it, consider that no coach has come up with a way to beat this type of defense. In hockey, when an obstruction is in your way, you knock it down with force. That's the essence of the game. Call it the "Campbell Strategy." Shoot the puck anyway. Thoughts?

I totally agree with this as part of the strategy. Let Murray and Iggy just shoot directly at the other team's players as hard as they can anywhere on the ice. You wanna play lame tactics because you can't play hockey? Fine, eat pucks.

Terrapin: Again, I still don't know what happened to our cycle and offensive zone domination. I think in 4 games we had like 2 or 3 good, prolonged cycles. WTF happened to it? Is it the coaching, players, system, all of the above?

sexyllama:It was because we played the same system and same chip in stuff and didn't adjust.

Canada Hockey shows had some great segments on it and some great video. Basically, the Bruins switched to a deep trap that slid directly into 4-box 1 high...

Think about that ... we continually chip it in:

a. We have 2 guys max vs. 4b. We have 1 guy in vs. 2-3

They showed numerous videos where the puck should have been carried in but WE RUSH RUSH RUSH... MUST SCORE GOALS GOALS GOALS....

Literally nothing was done. They showed Game 1, 2, 3, 4. Same thing every ****ing time. The analyst even said, "If DB get fired, this is the reason why..."

Get a guy who rip it at 100mph at times from the point and teams will not back in so tight. They will definitely be coming out and challenging the shot at a much closer distance to the blueline than standing around the slot and crease areas about to get hit very painfully. Watch teams PK the Predators. While Nashville has an impotent offense, no team packs it in down low and lets Weber just tee up slapshots from the point because he will hurt you.

Either the above or go a lot harder to the net and create more havoc than the Pens like to do. When you are playing a team with a potentially giant moving screen like Chara on D, you want to force him to play you around the front where his size can become a better screen than anyone else on the ice. He's real smart about generally not getting in the shooting lanes, but the Pens made it too easy for him to simply defense around the perimeter and not in the tough ice.

brwi wrote:Get a guy who rip it at 100mph at times from the point and teams will not back in so tight. They will definitely be coming out and challenging the shot at a much closer distance to the blueline than standing around the slot and crease areas about to get hit very painfully. Watch teams PK the Predators. While Nashville has an impotent offense, no team packs it in down low and lets Weber just tee up slapshots from the point because he will hurt you.

Either the above or go a lot harder to the net and create more havoc than the Pens like to do. When you are playing a team with a potentially giant moving screen like Chara on D, you want to force him to play you around the front where his size can become a better screen than anyone else on the ice. He's real smart about generally not getting in the shooting lanes, but the Pens made it too easy for him to simply defense around the perimeter and not in the tough ice.

I think you said it better than I did in my OP. This is an excellent strategy that I think the Pens should use, given their offensive talent.

I didn't see the bruins overloading down low, they did have pressure on the points and on the outside. Every shot we took on net was deflected or pass we made was broken up. SId and Geno tried to work the puck in the middle and never could seem to connect with the targeted player.

RxBandit66 wrote:As I sat and watched the third period of game 4, after the Bruins got a 1-0 lead, my girlfriend looks at me and says, "My God, the Bruins have four players in goal."

If the teams where switched , the same would have happened. All teams do this when they have to kill 10 minutes , with a lead and in game 4 with a 3-0 lead.this is not specific to just the bruins.

this series was decided by the forwards of both the team . the bruins forwards where backchecking every time a pen forward got the puck. never , ever letting sid/malkin to get any speed.on the other end, when the defensive guys pinch the centers where dropping to cover them . pens forwards did not bother to backcheck and decided to hang behind the blue line .when the defensive guys pinch the center has to drop to give them support but they never did till later.Even then it was SID dropping back.Malkin was skating around lost..

Layered defenses in both the NZ and DZ (more so NZ, but still...) survive on their ability to create turnovers and utilize transition to their advantage. They structure their defense to force turnovers and then when they retrieve the turnover they are NOT going into a structured defense on the other side. Less quantity, more quality.

One pertinent way to beat it (and many coaches know this, to say that no one has ever thought of a way to beat it would imply the New York Rangers have won four straight Stanley Cups) is to sustain attack time. Shooting into today's shin pads is a recipe for odd-man chances against, it doesn't answer the real problem at hand: the ability to generate scoring chances via sustained attack time.

We attacked on the rush. 2 on 3, 2 on 4, 1 on 3, 3 on 5, out-numbered at every pass. Out-numbered out high. Out-numbered going to the net. Out-numbered going the other way. We thought (evidently) we could catch them by surprise - we didn't. And, in conjunction, thought we could overwhelm with talent - we couldn't.

The advantage belongs to the defense in most even-numbered situations. So, you can only imagine what kind of disadvantage there is when out-numbered. See: rarity of shorthanded goals.

The shift of NZ defenses back to their own zone was brought about, in part, by the elimination of the red line and the proliferation of goaltending (and equipment). The same principles apply on how you can beat it however.

They are structured in front of the net to force shots away from the "house" which encompasses the slot but without necessarily guarding it directly. Pucks should be put into selected corners promote a positive matchup (i.e. Torey Krug's corner for Chris Kunitz forecheck/retrieval). The center should support on the "net side" of the corner battle. The off wing should offer weak side support or net-front/slot presence - prevent the defenseman from getting cleanly involved in the defensive support/retrieval. If we're in the LW corner, we should have a LHS d-man on the left point. Weak side defenseman should read the play and either hold the middle of the ice or shade slightly outside the zone if the puck has a less than 50% chance of being retained (adjust percentage to your own personal coaching style and game elements). Establish a four-man cycle utilizing a strong side defenseman.

Manufacture offense from behind the net, get eyes turned away from you and then you'll be able to quick strike the front of the net. The utilization of the cycle helps to pull defensive players from their positioning and create better matchups at better places on the ice (i.e. a wing defending the front of the net, etc.). The defense is layered, pull the layers apart and begin to attack from within.

The wear of longer, harder shifts will reap their rewards later in the game. Defensive shifts are usually tougher than offensive ones (see: shift length on PK vs. PP). Having to defend for 75 seconds will wear down nearly all players.

Unfortunately, the only good forechecking/board players/cyclers forwards we have are: Crosby, Dupuis, Kunitz, Iginla, Neal (kinda), Kennedy, Morrow, Cooke, Sutter, Vitale, Adams, Glass, but very few others...so you can see how we would be at a disadvantage to utilize this systemic adjustment. This is my serious face.

mikey287 wrote:Unfortunately, the only good forechecking/board players/cyclers forwards we have are: Crosby, Dupuis, Kunitz, Iginla, Neal (kinda), Kennedy, Morrow, Cooke, Sutter, Vitale, Adams, Glass, but very few others...so you can see how we would be at a disadvantage to utilize this systemic adjustment. This is my serious face.